The Lone Ranger (2013)
Trivia
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Spoilers (9)
In an interview, Johnny Depp thanked his stunt horse, Scout, for saving his life after a violent fall during filming. After Scout dragged Depp 25 feet, Scout jumped over him to avoid stepping on him. A clip of the fall shows the horse clearly jumping over Depp, and detaching him from the saddle. Depp suffered only minor bruises and scrapes, but says it could have been a lot worse if the horse had stepped on him.
Tonto means "fool" in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. In Spanish versions of this film, Tonto is renamed Toro, which means "bull."
The "frame story" where young Will meets the old Tonto takes place in 1933, the year of the first Lone Ranger radio broadcast.
During the opening sequence of the bank robbery, the music in the background is the William Tell Overture, by Gioachino Rossini, which is later played extensively in the film's climax. It was the musical cue used in the original radio show and later films, particularly for intense sequences. It became so popular that most people know it only as the "Lone Ranger" theme.
Todd McDaniels, a linguist at the Comanche Nation College, commented favorably on Johnny Depp's attempts to speak Comanche, a language with 23 to 30 living native speakers. "The words were there, the pronunciation was shaky, but adequate."
Johnny Depp's make-up and costume were inspired by artist Kirby Sattler's painting "I am Crow."
The film was nearly cancelled due to obstacles during production, including bad weather, wildfires, a chicken pox outbreak, and a crew member's accidental death.
To minimize the film's overall cost, Gore Verbinski, Jerry Bruckheimer, Johnny Depp, and Armie Hammer equally deferred 20 percent of their salaries.
The plot was originally supposed to focus more on supernatural elements and Native American mysticism. It included werewolves, which explained the silver bullets. However, this draft was supposedly part of a $250 million proposal that Disney quickly cancelled after John Carter (2012) bombed. When the project was revamped to meet Disney's approval, it was more like the current script.
The Wild West sideshow where young Will meets the elderly Tonto is called "The Thrilling Days of Yesteryear." The opening narration of the original Lone Ranger radio program invited listeners to "return with us to the thrilling days of yesteryear."
Gore Verbinski, Jerry Bruckheimer, Armie Hammer, and Johnny Depp openly criticized American critics' reviews. Depp said "the reviews were written seven to eight months before we released the film." Bruckheimer felt the film was overlooked and that critics "were reviewing the budget, not reviewing the movie." Armie Hammer said, "If you go back and read the negative reviews, most of them aren't about the content of the movie, but more what's behind it. It's got to the point with American critics, where if you're not as smart as Plato, you're stupid. That seems like a sad way to live your life. While we were making it, we knew people were gunning for it. I think it was the popular thing when the movie hit rocky terrain, they jumped on the bandwagon to try and bash it. They tried to do the same thing with World War Z (2013), it didn't work, the movie was successful. Instead, they decided to slit the jugular of our movie."
Though set in Colby, Texas, the film includes obvious shots of Monument Valley, Utah/Arizona, a favorite filming location for American director John Ford. According to Wikipedia, "Ford's evocative use of the territory for his Westerns has defined the images of the American West so powerfully, that Orson Welles once said that other filmmakers refused to shoot in the region, out of fears of plagiarism."
Quentin Tarantino named this movie as one of his ten favorites films of 2013.
Johnny Depp was two hours late to the script "read through" because he wanted to read in full make-up and costume at the Albuquerque studios production office.
As an homage to John Ford, the scene that introduces John Reid features passengers singing "Shall We Gather At The River." It was Ford's favorite hymn, included in at least five of his movies.
This is the first version of "The Lone Ranger" in any medium in which the actor playing Tonto receives top billing.
After filming was finished, the trains used in the movie were donated to the Fillmore and Western Railway in California.
The Lone Ranger comments that it has been nine years since he last fired his gun. The movie was shot in 2012, nine years since The Lone Ranger's most recent television appearance.
Each of the two steam locomotives used in the film had a pair of 1,000 hp Cummins diesel engines in its tender that supplied power and movement, and where hydraulic hoses connected the engine to the tender. Each train was operated by a computer inside the cab, but a real locomotive engineer also had to be in the cab to control the brakes and override the computers in case of an emergency. The smoke and steam were visual effects.
"Sands' Theme", from Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), is credited to "Tonto's Giant Nuts." It was actually written by Johnny Depp, who invented the name as a joke. Despite popular rumor, it is not the name of his band.
Even the boy's cap-gun holster set is a period-accurate Keyston set made by the San Francisco company as early as the 1930s, when the Golden Gate Bridge was being built.
In an interview with Vulture Magazine, Jerry Bruckheimer said, "I think it is going to be looked back on as a brave, wonderful film. I've been though this a lot with journalists. We made a movie years ago called Flashdance (1983), and I remember one journalist just giving us the worst review ever. Then, about five years later, we get this kind of love letter - that he totally "missed" it. That he loved the movie, and it's kind of the same with you that, any time it's on, you have to watch it. It happens, you know."
The original Lone Ranger radio serials led to a spin-off radio serial, The Green Hornet. The title character's alter ego, Britt Reid, was John Reid's great nephew. Tom Wilkinson appeared in the remake of The Green Hornet (2011).
The musical cue in the shot of Red sitting under the painting of a ballerina is the Swan Theme from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.
Despite the producers citing the presence of an adviser from the Comanche Nation, some debated the advisability of casting of Johnny Depp as a Native American, and whether the film would present a positive and accurate representation of the Comanche. Depp has stated he believes he has Native American ancestry, possibly from a great-grandmother. He has said that he considered the role a personal attempt "to try to right the wrongs of the past", in reference to portrayals of Native American culture in the media.
Although Armie Hammer plays the title role, Johnny Depp gets top billing, and was the focus of the marketing.
During the opening train scene, as John Reid tries to break free from the chains, he says "That's reinforced Bethlehem Steel." The steel company he names was founded by Augustus Wollebin 1857 as Saucona Iron Company. On May 1, 1861, the company name changed to the Bethlehem Iron Company. In 1899, the name changed Bethlehem Steel Company. The company built many products used in the U.S. infrastructure, and created many wartime products as well.
In September 2014, Studio President Alan Bergman was asked at a conference if Disney had been able to partially recoup its losses on this film, and John Carter (2012), through subsequent release windows or other monetization methods, and he responded: "I'm going to answer that question honestly and tell you no, it didn't get that much better. We did lose that much money on those movies."
During the scene where the last spike is driven, the song Stars and Stripes Forever is heard being played, despite the fact that this song was written in 1897. Several years after this movie takes place.
Johnny Depp played Rafael, a Native American, in The Brave (1997), his directorial debut. It was never released in the U.S. due to bad reviews at Cannes.
Early in the film, one of the Texas Rangers refers to "Redleggers." They were anti-slavery advocates who later became a Union cavalry unit (their uniforms substituted red ribbons on their blue pants for the yellow stripes of the U.S. Cavalry. They were also called Jayhawkers (the Jayhawk became the mascot for the University of Kansas). They fought primarily against the pro-slavery "border ruffians." Texas was principally southern, and joined the Confederacy.
At the beginning of the movie, we see several close-ups of the confection bag that the boy drops, and then later trades with the aged Tonto for a mouse. Clearly seen is an elephant, and the words "fresh roasted peanuts" all in red ink on the bag. Later, when Tonto is remembering burying the slain Rangers, he trades the Ranger, with the pictures of dance hall girls, the same empty confection bag.
For the train scenes seen in the film, a large oval shaped track had to be built near Albuquerque, New Mexico, to have rail lines that went north, south, east, and west. There were a total of six railroad locations in the film, but the oval was the largest. All the work was done by the Gandy Dancer Railroad and Excavating Services, who brought in 3,889,425 pounds of 33-foot rail, bars, tie places, and ties from Blythe, California. The whole rail line had to be removed after filming was completed, because the rail line had no outside interchange.
This is the seventh Disney film to receive a PG-13 rating, under the Disney banner, in the United States. The previous films were Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) (and its sequels), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), and John Carter (2012).
When Rebecca is having a sip from her well (right before the fake Comanche attack), the scene mirrors the attack on the McBane property on Sergio Leone's classic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). In that film, McBane too is sipping a small cup from his well, and is alerted to hidden intruders by the instantaneous silence of birds. The musical score is also quite similar.
The book that John Reid calls his "bible" is "Two Treatises on Government" by John Locke, a seventeenth-century English social scientist.
Many scenes in the movie pay homage to well known films, for example, Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), For a Few Dollars More (1965), the Indiana Jones franchise, Back to the Future Part III (1990), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and many of John Ford's films, shot in Monument Valley.
The fairground organ music, during the opening 1933 San Francisco scene, is taken from a recording made on the Wurlitzer theater pipe organ of the Blackpool Tower Ballroom, England.
This is the first and only collaboration of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter not to be from Tim Burton (directed, and/or produced).
At the beginning of the movie, when Latham Cole looks at his pocket watch, there are faint chimes heard in the background in homage to Lee Van Cleef's pocket watch in For a Few Dollars More (1965).
The scene at the water well is a combination of two scenes in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968): an early scene, in which killers arrive at a remote farm, and a later scene, in which a defender appears. In both, the insects stop chirping to signal the arrival.
The exploding bridge scene is very similar to the one in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), in which Allied P.O.W.s make a plan to sabotage their Japanese captors by blowing up a bridge during World War II.
Disney delayed production of the film due to budget concerns, and because Cowboys & Aliens (2011) underperformed.
Jessica Chastain and Abbie Cornish were considered for the role of Rebecca Reid, but lost to Ruth Wilson.
The music played at the fairground at the very start is "The Blaydon Races" by George Ridley, a famous Geordie folk song.
This is the second Johnny Depp movie where an optical illusion of a bird in a cage is played as a child's toy. This trick was previously used in Sleepy Hollow.
The film surpassed John Carter (2012) as Disney's biggest bomb.
This is the second movie starring Johnny Depp in which the line "Stupid white man" is used by a Native American character, although this time the line is cleaned up for a Disney movie. The other movie in which the line is used is Dead Man (1995), in that movie the line is said by Gary Farmer as "Stupid fucking white man."
The first film Cinematographer Bojan Bazelli has shot with anamorphic lenses since Body Snatchers (1993).
The trains used in the film could reach 30 miles per hour, which was the standard speed for locomotives during that era. An EMD SW1500 diesel switcher was used for the scenes that did not show the steam locomotives.
The movie loosely resembles the ceremony driving the "Golden Spike" near Promontory Point Utah. In the movie it ends with the chase where 2 railroad tracks run side by side of each other for a decent length. Any railroad would only build 1 track with a short side track here and there. How this movie actually resembles the Golden Spike is that the two railroad companies actually met but kept building. If you look at google maps you will see 2 tracks that run parallel(but not just next to each other) for quite a few miles east of the ceremony point (being they were paid for each mile built). Union Pacific bought the western half of the new track and quickly abandoned these duplicate tracks built.
The locomotives and rolling stock seen in the film were all built in a machine shop in Sun Valley, California. One of the two locomotives, a 4-6-0 or Ten-wheeler, was used in the beginning of the film and then was renovated into the "Constitution" locomotive seen later in the film. The other locomotive, a 4-4-0 or American, was based on the Central Pacific Jupiter that was on hand for the real Golden Spike Ceremony up on Promontory Point. For easy movement, the locomotives and rail cars were built in the same fashion as shipping containers so they could be added and removed from their chassis and then transported on flatbed trucks. This method was also used in part of the train chase scene that took place in the mountains since they could not build any railroad tracks up in the mountains.
This is the second Lone Ranger film nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture. The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981) was nominated 32 years earlier. Neither film won the award.
This is the first version of The Lone Ranger to be released in IMAX, as well as the first to receive a PG-13 rating.
In all previous versions of the story, "kemosabe" was just a made up Indian word which meant nothing. This film defines it as "wrong brother" as Tonto was hoping John's more capable brother, Dan, would be at his side.
The first feature film to shoot with a production model of the Arri Alexa Studio camera, which cinematographer Bojan Bazelli wanted to use for its 4:3 sensor, and because it was the only Alexa camera with a rotating mirror shutter and optical viewfinder. The sole prototype model of the Studio was being used by Roger Deakins to shoot Skyfall (2012), so Bazelli had to wait several months for the production model to officially be released.
In March 2002 Columbia Pictures announced their intention to make a Lone Ranger film with Classic Media, who owned the film rights at the time. Husband and wife producers Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher joined the project. The tone was to be similar to The Mask of Zorro (1998), and Columbia suggested that Tonto be re-written as a female love interest. The projected budget was set at seventy million dollars. David Peoples and Janet Peoples were hired to write the script the following year, which was rewritten by Laeta Kalogridis. Jonathan Mostow was attached to direct by early 2005, but Columbia placed the film in turnaround.
In April 2012, it was announced that Jack White was hired to compose the score for the film. White later declined to work on the film's music, citing scheduling conflicts.
Was criticized for the casting of Caucasian actor Johnny Depp for the role of a Native American, as well as the overuse and exaggerated use of war paint to portray Native Americans.
The Constitution strongly resembles Illinois Central Railroad #382, the very same locomotive that Casey Jones drove on that fateful night in 1900. Only difference is that the Constitution has a rounded top firebox instead of a square shaped Belbare firebox like on the 382.
The film was defeated at the box-office by Despicable Me 2 (2013).
The Weinstein Company was interested in purchasing the film rights from Classic Media in 2007, but the deal fell apart when Entertainment Rights eventually optioned the property.
The mask that the Lone Ranger (John Reid) wears in this movie appears to be green, a foreshadowing that he is the great uncle of the Green Hornet, Britt Reid.
Despite the lengthy scene taking place in a brothel, the word "prostitute" is never used (likely due to this film being released by Disney).
Beginning in November 2013, the Autry National Center exhibited the costumes Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp wore in the film through a loan from the Walt Disney Archives.
Andrea Riseborough and Sarah Gadon auditioned for a role.
When Tonto and John arrive at the "Hall of Human Deformities" the barker says "fun and educational for you, sir." This mirrors what the barker at the carnival from the prologue says to the little boy. "Fun and educational for you."
Tom Wilkinson 's character "Cole" in this film spoke to John Reid & referring to a Lone Ranger as some sort of "ghost". Wilkinson 's character in "The Patriot"(2000) spoke of Mel Gibson's avenging "Benjamin Martin" character as some sort of "ghost" as well.
The first theatrically released version of the character since William A. Fraker's equally ill-fated The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981) 32 years earlier.
Spoilers
Near the film's climax, crates of explosives are visible, with the Giant Powder Company of San Francisco's logo. The company was the United States' first licensed manufacturer of dynamite.
One of the Rangers waiting at the train station has a "redneck toothpick" in his mouth. It is actually a baculum, an animal penile bone, most likely from a raccoon. Tonto later makes a trade while burying the man.
In the original radio series, Butch Cavendish and his men ambushed six Texas Rangers in the canyon called Bryan's Gap. The lead Ranger, Dan Reid, held the rank of Captain, and his brother John was already a Texas Ranger. The 25th Anniversary radio episode identified the other dead Rangers as Jim Bates, Sam Cooper, Jack Stacy, and Joe Brent.
Tonto retells the main story in 1933. The main story sets in 1869 - a time lap on 64 years. During the main story, he says he has been hunting the bad guy for 23 years (the men who killed his tribe). That happened when he was around ten of so (give or take a couple of years). That makes "young" Tonto around 31-35 years old, and "old" Tonto somewhere around 95-99.
During the Train Robbery near the end, as The Colonel is shooting at Tonto, the bullets hit on time with The William Tell Overture playing in background
Besides the musical reference to Rossini's William Tell Overture, there are at least two operatic plot references. The magic bullet which can never miss is a plot device in Weber's Der Freischütz, and the silver returning to the river whence it came is a reference to the closing of Wagner's Die Götterdämmerung, where the Rhein gold returns to the river.
During the beginning scene where Tonto meets the boy he is given a bag of peanuts to eat, later when he is telling the story of the film Tonto is burying one of cowboys near the beginning and gives them each a gift, one of them is given a used up peanut bag that he got in the future from the boy. A nod to Tonto's mystical abilities.
The scene where the train rolls off the blown out bridge is just like the train sequence in Back to the Future Part III (1990), where the overpowered train rolls off the unfinished bridge into the ravine below.
